GREAT FLAKES STATE: Reduced for use

Plastic bumpers were filling
Wisconsin until a man with a
plan got a grinder

February 28, 2002

BY RICK BARRETT
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL

WAUKESHA, Wis. -- Bob Druhn is tough
on plastic car bumpers, having
pulverized thousands of them in the
last several weeks alone.

Druhn is seeking to build a profitable
business and help solve what has
become a national problem: disposing
of millions of plastic bumpers that are
pulled off wrecked cars.

Druhn, owner of All American Plastic
Recycling in Waukesha, Wis., has a
machine that grinds up a full-size
automobile bumper in seconds. The
ground plastic is then boxed and
shipped to a company in Kentucky,
where it's used to make septic
systems. His company, with only six
employees, has been grinding up
bumpers for about three months.

Druhn decided to start recycling car
bumpers because of high demand.
Bumpers are shipped to Wisconsin
from across the country because the
state's landfill laws allow disposal of
the junked parts, he said.

But burying bumpers in landfills is
expensive, so businesses that handle
thousands of them are turning to
recycling.

There's no shortage of junked plastic
car bumpers, Druhn says. He gets
them from as far away as Wyoming.
And there's no snobbery in recycling:
Most bumpers are ground up the
same, whether they come from a Geo
Metro or a Mercedes Benz C-Class.

The grinding machine alone doesn't do
the trick. Before each bumper is
reduced to flakes, contaminants such
as bumper stickers, chrome strips and
pieces of metal must be removed by
hand.

Removing contaminants is a tedious
but important process since something
as small as a metal screw could do
hundreds of dollars in damage to the
bumper grinder's 48-inch blades.
Workers use metal detectors and
magnets to help find things such as a
car key that was taped under a bumper
for safekeeping.

"Metal is a real headache for us,"
Druhnsaid. "We look very hard to find
it, but sometimes it still gets by us."

Through plastic bumpers, Druhn has
seen a unique snapshot of American
life. He has peeled off stickers touting
nudist camps, environmental causes,
religion and the Girl Scouts.

He has seen bumpers that have been
cracked and squished in every type of
wreck imaginable, and sometimes he
wonders about the stories behind
them.

"These bumpers have touched a lot of
lives," Druhn said.

For a variety of reasons, the bumpers
that end up at Druhn's recycling facility
were rejected for reuse at body shops.
Mostly, the bumpers have cracks or
dents that couldn't be repaired.

After Druhn grinds car bumpers into
flakes, he ships the material to
Champion Polymer Recycling in
Winchester, Ky. There the flakes are
melted and shaped into underground
septic systems that are sold
throughout the world, said Champion
Polymer manager Ron Sherga.

The type of plastic used in car
bumpers is ideal for manufacturing
underground septic systems. It lasts
for many years and it flexes when the
ground shifts, Champion Polymer
officials said.

As the demand for recycled plastics
increases, prices for the material
eventually will increase, Druhn said.
Some of his plastics that aren't from
car bumpers are used by a company
that makes goose decoys, and Druhn
said he's exploring markets for
plastics used to build outdoor decks.
Carpet companies are also interested
in recycled plastics.

"We are in this for the long term,"
Druhn said. "I think that's the way we
have to look at it."